The present disclosure relates to undersea cables and, more particularly, to plug for joining an undersea cable and another undersea cable with an encasement.
Undersea cable systems typically require that housings and cables be encapsulated with polyethylene (PE) in order to achieve long term life in seawater. Expensive molds are employed in current processes for forming the PE encapsulations and these processes can take a relatively long time to complete. That is, a significant investment in time and money is often required in order to achieve a high-strength durable cable with a PE housing overmold.
More particularly, traditional sub-sea signal cable splice interconnections can use a field applied termination element as the PE housing overmold. The cable splicing process involves strength member termination and fiber-optic conductor splicing and relies on the PE overmolding to achieve long term durability.
Meanwhile, natural gas and oil industries often use electrofusion to produce high quality inexpensive welding of high and medium density pipelines. Electrofusion can provide a controllable heating of pipes and fittings that results in a high pressure seal. In addition, the portability of electrofusion features is usually inexpensive and reliable heating systems are available to support field operations. Such electrofusion features may include heating elements that are integrated into fittings and current in the form of direct current (DC) provides the necessary power (at, e.g., 40 volts) to activate the heating elements. Once electrofusion is complete, pipes and fittings can be used underwater and, even though wire themselves may corrode over time, electrofusion joints will not be affected.